‘How will she know?’ the boy would ask.
‘Because she can see you, my son,’ he would reply, confident that she was with them in spirit. ‘Because love has no boundaries.’
It hadn’t been easy for either of them. But while Ramoncito was distracted by his school friends and his schoolwork, his father was left alone to wallow in self-pity in the house on the beach where everything reminded him of Estella. Sometimes in the summer, the heavy scent of roses would rise up on the air and waff in through the window to hijack his senses. He would awaken from his dreams believing she was there, lying next to him, ready to caress him with her honey eyes and gentle smile. It was in those tormented moments that he felt the urge to sob like a child, clutch her pillow to his face and breathe in the memories that clung to the linen. So he had turned on the light and written his feelings down. Those poems had saved his sanity. They had also changed his life.
Ramon had learnt, through the intense scrutiny of his emotions, why he had run away all his life. First from his parents, then from Helena, then from his children and finally from Estella. He had run away from love. Love had terrified him. As long as he was on his own, far away from the people who cared about him, he was safe from the suffocating intensity of their love. The responsibility
had been too heavy for him to carry. So he had enjoyed their love from a distance, returning every now and then to check it was still there before breaking away again before it overwhelmed him. His intentions had always been good. He had suffered regret when he had watched Helena and the children walk out of his life, when he had travelled to England to find Federica crying in the porch of the church because she missed him, when he had seen her that afternoon on the bicycle, squinting into the sun. He had suffered terribly because he loved them. But he had also been afraid of his own capacity to love. He had run from that too. But Estella had been different. At first he had run from her like he had run from Helena. But Estella had loved him without wanting to possess him. She had loved him enough to give him his freedom. Her love had been pure and unselfish. Without realizing it he had learnt from her love. It was because of this lesson that he had decided to write a book, not for publication, but for Helena. An allegory with a hidden message. He wanted her to know why he had run from her. He wanted her to learn too from Estella’s undemanding love.
Sam sat on the top of the cliff and gazed out onto a sea that never changed,
whatever the season. The winter frosts painted the grass-topped cliffs with icy fingers, froze the rivers and streams, yet the sea stayed the same. It could be rough, it could be calm, but it was never dictated to by the seasons. It belonged to itself.
Nuno had belonged to himself. He had never been influenced by anybody. Sam missed him. The house continued to reverberate with his presence and they all still talked about him as if he were alive, retelling stories of the funny things he had said and the odd things he had done. Inigo had given his study to Sam. Sam had been so touched he had wept. His father had patted him firmly on the back and told him that he could do with it whatever he wanted. But Sam had kept it exactly the same. Ingrid was touched that he wanted to keep her father’s memory alive in the one room in the house that had truly been his. Sam had cleared the desk, placing all Nuno's pieces of paper with illegible notes scrawled in his hand across them, into a couple of boxes in order not to throw anything away. Then he had gone through his drawers. It was there that he had come across a yellowing book of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. It was a book he knew well. Nuno had often quoted from it and had given Sam a copy for his confirmation - indeed he had quoted from it at his funeral. But
there was something deeply touching about Nuno’s own private copy because he had written down his thoughts and ideas in the margins. However, it was the accompanying letter that inspired him.
It was then that Sam thought of Federica.
The letter was addressed to his wife Violet, Sam’s grandmother, and dated 8 May 1935. It was written from Rome. It spoke of his deep love for her and his desire to make her his wife. The marriage was obviously one her parents opposed for she had spiralled into a dark hole of despair from which there seemed no escape. Nuno had seen no other way to console her, being across the waters, so he had sent her his book with notes of encouragement which he had written into the margins alongside the verses he thought would give her strength. Sam was so moved by the letter that he read it more than once. Then he read the verses and Nuno’s comments. It had obviously worked for they had married in the end and shared many happy years together.